Officer like qualities required in SSB recruitment interviews

Want to know the qualities which officers in SSB look for in you? This article provides the details about the procedure of service selection board (SSB) and various mistakes which should be avoided during the selection process, besides knowing which qualities you should have to better your prospects for selection.

SSB Selection process

It has been seen that most of the candidates who go for the service selection board at various places don't get selected easily. It often happens that they don't even come to know what for they have been thrown out. So here you are basically going to know what all basic officer-like qualities which they seek in you.

Searching all necessary qualities in a person is not an easy task. That is the reason why they conduct SSB for 5 days. On the first day, they separate out the cream layer from the batch of candidates which had come there to give SSB. Later, they examine them properly and search for the OLQs (officer like qualities). There are different officers appointed for this task. The job of every officer is to search for that particular quality they are appointed for. For instance, the psychological officer examines your mental ability to act quickly and effectively in various circumstances. Although there has been lack of manpower in the officer cadre in our Defence Services, the SSB doesn't compromise in their selection process. Unless they find the desired OLQs in a candidate, they don't select him.

Officer like Qualities (OLQs)

The following are some of the officer like qualities(OLQs) which they are searching in you:

Honesty

The first and foremost thing you should keep in mind, while giving your SSB, is to be honest all the time. Remember that those people sitting over there have lot of experience. They examine different kinds of people who come to give SSB. So there is no way of playing around with their head and trying to fool them by giving false statements. The main job of the interviewer is to see how honest you are with him.

Firstly, when you enter the interview room, the interviewer calms you down, making you comfortable and then starts asking you the questions. Later, as the interview goes on, he starts asking some tricky questions and he notices your response. Your body language also projects an impression on the interviewer. So avoid using hand gestures while explaining.

Psycology

The Psychological officer is meant to take certain tests to examine your psychology. These tests include TAT (Thematic Apperception test), WAT (word association test) and SRT (situation reaction test). These three tests basically tells about your reaction and response under different circumstances.

(i) TAT (Thematic Apperception Test): Different images are projected in front of you after certain intervals of time. Thereafter, you are asked to frame a story out of each image. Most of the images which are projected are vague. This is to test how much deep your brain can think positively with the least input given to it. The last image of this test is always a blank, which makes this test quite interesting. The story which you make after seeing this blank slide is going to grab the main attention of the psychological officer. He wants to know what your mind thinks when no input is given to it.

(ii) SRT (Situation Reaction Test): You will be given different situations by the psychological officer and then you have to act according to those situations. Also, there is a time limit to react to these situations. This is to study how quickly and effectively your mind reacts to the given situation. This test is meant to give strain to brain to think for an appropriate solution to given situation.

(iii) WAT( Word Association Test): You will be told different words which we use in our day today life and you need to frame a sentence out of the given word. This test is meant to test how positive your mind thinks.

Integrity

This is one of the most important things which is seen in SSB. Your GTO (group tasking officer) is going to focus more on this quality. Most of the activities which he is going to make you do are to be done in a group. How you are going to co-operate with them will be the GTO's main concern. You will quite often get a chance to talk to him and that will also be the time when your integrity will be tested. How you respond to those questions are going to project your integrity.

Physical Fitness

This factor is going to be the least of the concerns in SSB. They are not going to see how physically strong you are but your approach towards the obstacles will show your fearlessness and zest to overcome difficulty. There is an obstacle course in every SSB which needs to be cleared by candidates individually. Every obstacle contains some points, easier ones have less points whereas tougher once more. You don't need to worry about how many obstacles you'll be able to do. But make sure that you give your hundred percent to clear every obstacle. If you face difficulty in clearing any obstacle, then don't give up on it. Try again at least twice or thrice. This will show them that you don't give up easily on harder ones.

Speaking skills

People say that it is very important for you to speak English fluently in SSB. And if you don't have good speaking skills then you might fail in SSB. Believe me this is all rubbish. Yes it is true that you should be knowing how to communicate in English. But it is not necessary to excel in speaking English. I had seen people who knew very little English and had cleared SSB successfully. Whenever you talk to any officer in SSB you always need to reply back to him in English. If you believe that you can deliver certain sentences in Hindi more efficiently then you can do that. But make sure that you switch over to English as soon as possible. Don't make him instruct you to speak in English as that is going to create a bad impression on him. Also it will be embarrassing for you and you might lose confidence.

Confidence

As it is mentioned above, English speaking skills are not of much importance in SSB but your confidence in delivering your talk should never go down. Whatever you speak it should be clear and in a confident tone. If you do this, the officer to whom you will be talking will get assured that the candidate is genuine and honest. There had been instances where a person has spoken everything in Hindi but was confident enough to impress the board officers and thus got selected.

Leadership

This is one of the main qualities which an officer should possess. One should be able to lead his men in uniform with high degree of confidence. He should understand the sense of responsibility which he have on his shoulders when he commands over his men. He is responsible for every action taken by his men. He should be able to give logical orders to his men and monitor their work.

These are some of the main officer like qualities which the SSB officers are looking for. And if you have all of these qualities in you, then there is no way of getting rejected from SSB. These are the qualities which a gentleman should possess and that is what you will become after getting trained from any Defence Academy.

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Comments

It is really nice,useful and informative article for all the aspirants preparing for their upcoming SSB. It deals with all the problems faced by an aspirant who is new to this field and wants to serve in the army as an officer.

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